Day of Infamy:Overview

Day of Infamy is an open-ended World War II experience founded by New World Interactive and expanded upon by the Insurgency modding community.

Similar to how Epic decided to crowd-source the development of Unreal Tournament, New World Interactive intends to open source the development of Insurgency’s World War II experience. Not only is Insurgency a great platform for a gritty WWII game, but with such a vast global setting where so many factions and locations may be represented, it is the ideal platform for an open sourced game.

NWI has decided to create a base that uses American vs. German forces, however the experience may be expanded upon by the community to include any force that fought in the war in any setting. The mod may for instance eventually include British, Russians, Canadians, or even the Chinese forces. The list goes on, and the manifestation of this is in the hands of Insurgency players instead of pre-determined by NWI.

The motivation behind calling the project Day of Infamy is two-part. First, it represents a significant turning point in the war when Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared war on the Axis powers, referring to the December 7, 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor as “a date which will live in infamy.” This famous speech became known as the “Day of Infamy” speech, and that’s how it was referred by the media.

The second part of this name choice has to do with the influence of Day of Defeat. The developers at New World Interactive grew up playing this mod for Half-Life and have always wanted to play a game that instilled the same sense of nostalgia. NWI feels a sense of duty to revive this experience - a close quarters, gritty, intense, World War II experience built on Source Engine. Insurgency, as it is, is the perfect platform for such an experience.

One of the major goals of this project is to open up Insurgency to modding. As it stands, Insurgency is fairly moddable, but there is still a lot of progress NWI hopes to make in this regard. With the introduction of Lua scripting, NWI hopes to put more power into the hands of modders to create unique experiences using the Insurgency platform. NWI intends to demonstrate the new Lua scripting features through this community WWII mod project, providing an example to other modders who wish to use the scripting features their own way.

Design Goals

From a basic game design perspective, the game will function similarly to Insurgency. The same game modes will be supported, as well as the same class and supply systems.

There are however a few key differences and additions to the experience which are outlined below:

Scale. We will up the default max players from 32 players to 48 players.

Damage model. The absence of body armor as well as AP and HP ammo has an impact on the damage system.

Game modes. We will utilize Lua scripting to create some new game modes, which are still to be determined.

Weapon attachments. Without the modern array of weapon upgrades, the mod will result to a more simplistic approach to weapon attachments. Weapon attachments that are planned include bayonets (for melee), slings (for faster weapon switching), alternative rear sights, bipods, drum magazines, and grenade launchers.